Ch. 6

War Hawk

A war hawk, or simply hawk, is a term used in politics for someone favoring war in a debate over whether to go to war, or whether to continue or escalate an existing war. War hawks are the opposite of doves.

Louisiana Purchase

April 30, 1803, the negotiation team agreed to the Louisiana Purchase, offering to pay $15 million for 827,000 square miles of North America. The purchase more than doubled the size of the United States. It included the city of New Orleans and gave the United States complete control of the Mississippi River and the entire Mississippi River Valley. While many rumors circulated at the time, the official announcement of the offer in the United States did not occur until July 4, 1803.

Gibbons v. Ogden

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) vastly expanded the powers of Congress through a single clause in the Constitution: the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8. The Court ruled that under that clause Congress had powers to regulate any aspect of commerce that crossed state lines, including modes of transportation, and that such regulation preempted conflicting regulation by the states. Since Gibbons, the Commerce Clause has provided the basis for sweeping congressional power over a multitude of national issues.

Aaron Burr

He and Vice President Aaron Burr were the first executive officers to be sworn in on Capitol Hill. But even as the new city rose around him, Jefferson longed for a rural life. Jefferson wanted the United States to remain a primarily agrarian, or agriculture-based society. He believed a person who owned a farm and worked the land would be economically independent, and that independence would develop and preserve wisdom, self-control, courage, and fortitude. He thought commerce, on the other hand, was a corrupter of morals that made people greedy and dependent on others.

Lewis and Clark expedition

In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson guided a splendid piece of foreign diplomacy through the U.S. Senate: the purchase of Louisiana territory from France. After the Louisiana Purchase Treaty was made, Jefferson initiated an exploration of the newly purchased land and the territory beyond the "great rock mountains" in the West.

William Henry Harrison

In 1809, William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana, held a meeting with Native American leaders. He convinced those present to turn over three million acres of tribal land to the U.S. government. But not all tribal leaders agreed.

Meriwether Lewis

Jefferson picked Meriwether Lewis to conduct the expedition across the Louisiana Territory. Lewis was an army captain who had served Jefferson as his personal secretary. Lewis chose William Clark as his collider. Clark had been one of Lewis's army commanders. Jefferson gave Lewis and Clark detailed written instructions for their journey. Their primary goals were to explore and map the Missouri River and to find a navigable water route to the Pacific Ocean.

James Madison

Jefferson was not happy with the appointments. He had intended to appoint judges who agreed with his principles. He instructed his secretary of State, James Madison, not to deliver the commissions, or legal papers that made the appointments official. Jefferson and Madison decided that the commissions had expired when Adams left office.

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams began his diplomatic career as the U.S. minister to the Netherlands in 1794, and served as minister to Prussia during the presidential administration of his father, the formidable patriot John Adams.

Henry Clay

Leader of the Whig party and five times an unsuccessful presidential candidate, Henry Clay (1777-1852) played a central role on the stage of national politics for over forty years. He was secretary of state under John Quincy Adams, Speaker of the House of Representatives longer than anyone else in the nineteenth century, and the most influential member of the Senate during its golden age. In a parliamentary system, he would have undoubtedly become prime minister.

War of 1812

Most early battles of the War of 1812 took place near Canada. The confidence of the United States was high, but its army and navy were young and untried. The British quickly captured Detroit. When the United States tried to capture the city of Montreal, it was badly beaten. The United States made three attempts to invade Canada in 1812, and all ended unsuccessfully.

Sacagawea

Sacagawea had been captured by the Hidatsa and later sold to Charbonneau. Sacagawea said her people lived at the source of the Missouri River. Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau as an interpreter to help them on their trip up the river. Because Charbonneau spoke little Shoshone, they agreed to bring Sacagawea along as well. Over the winter, Sacagawea gave birth to her son Jean-Baptiste at the fort, and brought him along on the expedition in the spring. Her skills collecting edible plants and making clothes were valuable to the expedition, and the presence of a young woman and her child with the group of men was a signal to many of the local Native American groups that the expedition was peaceful.

Adams-Onis Treaty

The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain.

Convention of 1818

The Battle of Tippecanoe and its aftermath increased ill

nationalism

The strong belief that the interests of a particular nation-state are of primary importance. Also, the belief that a people who share a common language, history, and culture should constitute an independent nation, free of foreign domination

American System

This "System" consisted of three mutually reenforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other "internal improvements" to develop profitable markets for agriculture.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson came to the presidency after a long and bitter presidential campaign. But he had a plan for policy changes in the government. The election that placed Jefferson in office had been a divided one. He would now have to work to unite the country again.

William Clark

William Clark was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in prestatehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Missouri. Clark was a planter and slaveholder

States Rights doctrine

states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

James Monroe

the president decided to strengthen U.S. negotiations with France. He sent James Monroe of Virginia to join Livingston in France. Previously, Monroe had been a leader in demanding that the Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution. Jefferson presented Monroe with written instructions to offer $10 million for the purchase of the Port of New Orleans and the Floridas.

Rush-Bagot Agreement

The Rush-Bagot Treaty or "Rush-Bagot Disarmament", was a treaty between the United States and Britain limiting naval armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, following the War of 1812.

Battle of new Orleans

In December 1814, as diplomats met in Europe to hammer out a truce in the War of 1812, British forces mobilized for what they hoped would be the campaign's finishing blow. After defeating Napoleon in Europe earlier that year, Great Britain had redoubled its efforts against its former colonies and launched a three-pronged invasion of the United States. American forces had managed to check two of the incursions at the Battles of Baltimore and Plattsburgh, but now the British planned to invade New Orleans—a vital seaport considered the gateway to the United States' newly purchased territory in the West. If it could seize the Crescent City, the British Empire would gain dominion over the Mississippi River and hold the trade of the entire American South under its thumb.

McCulloch v. Maryland

In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had implied powers under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to create the Second Bank of the United States and that the state of Maryland lacked the power to tax the Bank. Arguably Chief Justice John Marshall's finest opinion, McCulloch not only gave Congress broad discretionary power to implement the enumerated powers, but also repudiated, in ringing language, the radical states' rights arguments presented by counsel for Maryland.

impressment Tecumseh

In the Northwest Territory, settlers clashed with Native Americans, including the Shawnee leader, Tecumseh.

Andrew Jackson

Jackson and his Creek and Cherokee allies were victorious. Jackson was soon promoted to general. Years later, when Jackson was president of the United States, he led the cause of expelling his former Creek and Cherokee allies and other Native Americans from their homelands in the Southeast.

Battle of Tippecanoe

The Battle of Tippecanoe and its aftermath increased ill feelings against the British. At the time before Tenskwatawa's attack, Americans were already angry with the British. Congress had responded to British impressment of U.S. sailors and seizure of U.S. ships with the Non-Intercourse Act and then Macon's Bill Number Two, which imposed an embargo on trade with Britain. After the Battle of Tippecanoe, U.S. soldiers found that some Shawnee had been using British-made rifles. Furthermore, Tecumseh and other Shawnee had fled to British Canada, presumably because they felt they would be safe there. Many American settlers concluded that the British were providing arms to the Native Americans and encouraging them to attack settlers and raid settlements.

Erie Canal

The Erie Canal is a canal in New York that is part of the east-west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System. Originally it ran about 363 miles from Albany, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, at Lake Erie

Louisiana Territory

The French Louisiana Territory included the port city of New Orleans and roughly the entire Great Plains region from the western shore of the Mississippi River to the base of the Rocky Mountains.

Judicial review

The Marbury decision expanded the role of the judicial branch by establishing the principle of judicial review. Judicial review is the power of the courts to decide whether or not laws passed by Congress and state legislatures are constitutional. Marshall's ruling said that the courts had the last say in interpreting the meaning of the Constitution. Since the Marbury decision, the Supreme Court has used the power of judicial review to overturn more than 150 acts of Congress and more than 1,000 state laws. Some of the most important decisions in the court's history have involved the use of this power.

Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy regarding domination of the American continent in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention.

John Marshall

The Supreme Court decided the case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the court's unanimous opinion. On one hand, the Supreme Court ruled that Marbury's commission was valid. More important, however, the court refused to use powers granted by the Judiciary Act to force Madison to deliver this commission. According to the chief justice, there was a big problem with the Judiciary Act. In passing this law, Congress had given the Supreme Court the power to issue orders requiring government officials to fulfill their duties. But only the Constitution, which Marshall declared to be "the supreme law of the land," could assign powers to the branches of government. Therefore, the Judiciary Act was unconstitutional and void. This was the first time the Supreme Court had determined that a law passed by Congress was unconstitutional.

Treaty of Ghent

The Treaty of Ghent (8 Stat. 218), signed on December 24, 1814 in the city of Ghent, was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom.